University News

Dr. Daniel R. Rehak has joined the University of Memphis' Herff College of Engineering as a visiting professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He serves as the co-director of the Workforce Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Co-Laboratory and technical director of the Learning Systems Architecture Laboratory (LSAL), a research unit within the Institute for Intelligent Systems. Both are housed at the U of M's FedEx Institute of Technology.

The Workforce ADL Co-Lab facilitates the development and integration of ADL technologies in industry to enhance the learning and training of the workforce of the future. A collaborative effort between the FedEx Institute and the ADL Co-Lab Network, the Memphis site is one of only four such locations in the United States.

ADL was created by the U.S. Department of Defense nearly a decade ago as a mechanism to maintain military readiness in the information age through the delivery of anytime, anywhere instruction. The U of M Co-Lab facilitates mass education and large-scale adoption of e-learning standards to help businesses in both the public and private sectors reduce development and training costs. This learning environment of the future may be customized and delivered cost-effectively, anytime, anywhere. Research emphasis is in two major areas: intelligent learning environments and prototyping learning technology systems.

The Learning Systems Architecture Laboratory is a key player in the ADL initiative. Its research program centers on the design and creation of Internet-based technologies for education and training. LSAL engages in system design, prototype development and best practices with emphasis on emerging technologies and standards for lifelong e-learning.

"The Herff College of Engineering welcomes Dr. Rehak to its faculty," said Dean Richard C. Warder. "A well-respected, international leader in e-learning technologies, he will be a great asset to our College and the University, bringing with him prestigious partnerships and collaborations with organizations that span the globe."

David J. Russomanno, professor and chair of electrical and computer engineering, added "Dr. Rehak will complement our existing research focus area in intelligent systems."

Prior to joining the U of M, Rehak was technical director of the Learning Systems Architecture Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. He served as director of systems and courseware architecture for the Information Technology and Development Center at the Carnegie Mellon Research Institute from 1999-2000. Rehak was a faculty member in civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon from 1981-2006 and a member of the University's Institute for Complex Engineered Systems. He was awarded a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1985. Rehak served as visiting professor in the Institute for Educational Technology at the British Open University and visiting research scientist at the Catholic University of Leuven (K.U. Leuven), Belgium.

Rehak has been actively involved in the development of learning technology specifications and standards since 1998. He is an active member of the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee, the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative Technical Work Group, and is the learning technologies architect for the MedBiquitous Consortium. Rehak is a member of the Advanced Distributed Learning core team defining CORDRA (Content Object Repository Discovery and Resolution/Registration Architecture). He is responsible for international outreach and coordination of ADL's activities surrounding CORDRA and supervises the design, development and deployment of the global CORDRA architecture and infrastructure.

His 25-year professional career has been devoted to the research, design and development of large scale, interdisciplinary engineering computer systems, general-purpose engineering software tools and support environments, technology-enhanced education, and engineering application programs. He was awarded a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1981 and earned an M.S. and B.S., both in civil engineering, from the Carnegie Institute of Technology at Carnegie Mellon University.

A member of the Association for Computing Machinery and the IEEE Computer Society, Rehak is a popular international speaker on learning technologies. He has authored more than 100 technical papers and reports.